Disenchanted
by Althea21
Summary: A Danny/Don story, when the world around you know falls apart...
1. Chapter 1

**My second Danny/Flack story! Wish I had more time to write stories of the boys I love them so much. Doesn't contain any spoilers of episodes all the ramifications in here just comes along from my own imagination. Hope you will enjoy it. **

**Prologue**

Don Flack and Danny Messer left the office together wrapping up for the day. Danny slid into the drivers seat of the police issued SUV a huge bulky thing that made navigating through the city a little easier. He slid the seatbelt across his body watching Don Flack slide back against the seat sliding his tall figure almost midway down the seat so that his knees nearly touched the cubbyhole in front of him. His eyes closed.

"Home James." He purred his best British accent.

"Your place or mine?" Danny asked.

"Wherever there's food?" Flack asked opening one eye and all of sudden he was energetic and sitting up right as Danny started the car.

"Oh man I got to tell you this one remember how I was saying it's been a really boring week and next to nothing was happening." Danny didn't let him finish.

"I recall you sounding disappointed that people were behaving themselves and being law abiding citizens."

"Sshh listen to this. I got a call out to The Village just about the second I got to my desk. Turns out this young twenty something guy died after medics were called to his apartment by his roommates by the time the medics got there the guy was already a gonner." Danny pulled out of the basement of the Police Department waving at the officer on duty at the exit.

"Anyway I show up and there are these two blonde's who turn out to be twins! Dressed in nothing but their birthday suites crying and wailing holding onto each other for dear life. The guy was equally dressed for the occasion. The place was a freaking mess the chicks were a freaking mess."

"A threesome with some narcotics for entertainment gone wrong?" Danny offered as a guess and Flack smiled.

"Whose telling the story me or you?" Flack asked.

"Just get to the point." Danny switched the wipers on as a soft haze of rain began to fell he decided immediately that going to Flack's place was out of the choice he didn't feel like all the way across town in this rain and this traffic.

"So I interrogate them the twins."

"Did you at least give them time to dress?"

"What?! Hell no and ruin everyone else's fun?" Danny shook his head sadly.  
"I'm joking! Geez of course I gave them time to make themselves decent chivalry I'll have you know Daniel Messer is not dead."

"Could have fooled me just move on with your story your moving off the point again so what happened?"

"You're the one who moved off the point! Anyways turns out the girls had convinced Mr. Priestly that's the d.o.a's name by the way to use some viagra to keep him going right through the night as a upper so to say."

"Lemme guess he took more than one?" Danny asked and Flack burst out laughing.

"Oh a lot more than just one." Flack said with a mischievous grin on his face.

"How many?" Danny asked now really intrigued.

"The bottle."

"The entire bottle?" Danny asked mortified.

"The bottle. Shame its actually sad." Danny didn't know whether Flack was joking or not he certainly seemed serious enough.

"Was there a smile on his face?" Flack laughed again.

"How the hell do you go about explaining this to his parents and family? People wanna know what their loved ones died from how the hell can you go and tell them he was a horny little shit who wanted to get off with twins whole night so he popped a bottle of viagra? How can those words come out of your mouth?"

"Well I certainly hope those words would not come out of your mouth exactly like that Don and well the silver lining here would be that at least he died happy."

"Some might say soooo what are you saying you wanna try some? There is a drug store up ahead."

"You're a pervert. So what do you want to do tonight besides being perverted?"

"No perversion?" Don said with mock horror. "Goodness then there's nothing else to do now is there." He smiled.

"I was thinking of doing absolutely nothing and you can wait on me hand and foot how does that sound?" Danny said as though Flack hadn't said a word. In a relationship with a sarcastic smart ass you had to learn to know when to let something's simply slide and move on.

"That sounds like your dreaming pal." But Flack was joking he would have done anything for Danny and he was about to agree when a truck rammed into the back of the SUV. Not hard enough to injure them but it sent them both sprawling forward Danny just held back a bit by the weight of the seatbelt across his body. And it sent the SUV straight into a cab in front of them sandwiching theirs between he cab and the truck that had rammed into them. Rain was coming down hard now.

"What the hell?" Danny said turning around and just about making out the black truck that sat right on the butt of SUV.

"Are you okay?" Flack asked.

"Fine…Mac's going to kill me." Danny said unclipping his seatbelt.

"Danno they rode into us you oughto be in the clear." Flack said reaching out touching Danny's short blonde hair.

"I'm not supposed to take the van home. In case you haven't noticed I'm going home and your with me." Flack had to smile Danny knew the quickest route to go off the deep end.

"Everything is going to be okay just calm down."

Behind Flack's side Danny noticed a dark shadow climbing out of the van and coming around slowly.

"He better have insurance or so help me god I'm gonna lose it." Danny said and Flack turned around to see what Danny was looking at.

"Like you haven't already."

The shadow was closest to Flack's side. The image of a person rain made it hard to see but Flack saw it nonetheless. A nightmare coming.

"Danny get down!" He yelled.

"What?" Danny asked confused and by then it was already to late. Flack fumbled for his gun but the first pop was already exploding and instinctively Flack threw himself at Danny sheltering him from the barrage of bullets shattering glass piercing through the metal of the car. Danny felt the pierce of metal through his skin and screamed Flack held him closer protecting what he could knowing he was just flesh and bone.

It stopped after what seemed like an eternity but had just been a few minutes. The van pulled away rocking the SUV.

"Flack are you okay?" He was in pain and Flack's weight on him wasn't helping. What the hell just happened?

Flack didn't answer. Danny pushed at the heavy limp body.

"Don? Don?" Getting increasingly panicked forgetting his own pain worried about why Flack wasn't answering. "Flack please….."


	2. Chapter 2

Dear readers I happily present to you chapter 1 of my story. For those of you who have taken the time to read the prologue and leave a comment thank you so very much now take my hand and come along for the ride I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 1

He was sitting in bed staring at the TV with the sound turned down there was a repeat of Oprah on that's what you get for being an insomniac. To Danny Oprah looked really funny with the sound turned down but not funny enough to laugh.

Even without the sound he could tell it was one of those makeover type episodes, the before and after images were promptly displayed on a big screen behind Oprah and she was now jumping up and down screaming along with her audience in utter silence at the miracle transformation of a once dowdy looking housewife to an out of her depth bombshell.

The bombshell looked awkward in her transformed skin, although she may have been changed on the outside on the inside she was still that self conscious housewife whose husband no longer noticed her except when he needed to be fed. They might have invented a makeover for your physical appearance but there was no makeover for your soul.

And now bombshell attempted doing a catwalk type turn around on stage for Oprah and the audience's approval. It all seemed sad and pathetic the bombshell was just an animal in a circus act performing for a paying audience.

Winter was out in force in New York City bitter cold and miserable and winter was also in Danny's heart.

Rain fell harder outside rapping at Danny Messer's window so furiously as though it wanted to be inside.

Another sleepless night, another night alone. He hated the apartment, it seemed to big now and to quiet and it just had to many damn memories.

"Don't." He said to himself out loud and his voice broke and quivered with strain. He pushed the blankets off and got out of bed as though he was being chased by something. His mind and his thoughts had become his worst enemies. If he dwelled on the memories for to long he would break, not for the first time and not for the last. He wondered through the apartment turning on lights all the way to the kitchen.

"Don't do this, don't do this pull yourself together." He ran the cold water tap in the kitchen splashing his face with water. _Don't think about him. Just don't think about him_. Like it was that easy. His phone rang out loud making him jump he'd forgotten to change the ring tone to vibrate.

"Stella." He answered quickly just to have some relieve from his thoughts.

"I hate to do this to you I know your only expected to be back later today." And yes ordinarly he would have been against any call outs after midnight especially on such a poor night but not tonight, tonight it's a gift wrapped parcel filled with someone else's nightmare to save Danny from himself and the past.

"We have a decapitated head out in Central Park."

"Are you there already?" He asked.

"No just got the call out why?"

"Do you mind picking me up?" Stella paused this was something new Danny had never asked for a lift to a scene before. If she found it strange she didn't let it show in fact her voice was even chirpier than before.

"Fine I'll be there in twenty. And make us coffee were gonna need it and dress warm." She said bringing a smile to his face.

"Yes mother." He replied.

**************

It was the first time they were seeing each other in a work capacity. There had been hospital visits but then there was only one thing to talk about. Now this just felt awkward.

"Hey you. And how's the shoulder?" She asked.

"Hurts at times but nothing Ibruprofen can't fix."

He hated being inside the van it was the same make and model as the one he and Flack had been ambushed in, now this one was like a time machine transporting him back to the worst day in his life and as though she sensed what he was thinking Stella turned on the radio.

"You sounded awake when I called you couldn't sleep?" She asked.

"Something like that." He offered non committal.

"You tried sleeping pills?" He just nodded because the truth was he had been on a steady diet of pills to knock him out at night he was afraid of becoming addicted but the nights like tonight when he ended up watching Oprah instead of sleeping told him he already needed the pills a lot more than he liked to admit.

"Danny if your not sleeping right your going to burn yourself out." He shook his head at that statement wasn't he burnt out already wasn't he beyond that couldn't she see it.

"I'm okay.' He whispered the lie he kept telling those who dared ask the lie he was trying to make himself believe in.

"Here have your coffee." She looked at the travel mug he offered her an offering to please change the subject. Stella smiled and had a sip putting it back down in the cup holder almost immediately she looked over at him with a raised eyebrow.

"That's got to be the worst coffee I've ever had." She said swallowing hard coughing for effect.

"Hey atleast it's warm that's the important part."

Flashing police lights welcomed them to the crime scene.

"You ready?" Stella asked pulling the van up behind other police cars.

"Of course not." He replied getting out of the van.

Detective Angell was waiting for them behind the yellow crime scene tape. Danny felt her sadness wash over him he was getting used to people looking at him as though he was a walking living breathing catastrophe. No one knew how to deal with him after everything that had happened in the last two months.

"Messer welcome back." Danny nodded and felt the gaze of every officer rest on him. Everyone knew what had happened to him and Flack there was no escaping it.

"So what do we have Angell?" He asked wanting desperately to skip the pleasantries he just needed to work.

"Couple walking there dogs found the head." Angell said lifting the crime scene tape for them to pass under.

"Who takes dogs for walks at this time of the night in this kind of weather?" Danny asked.

"People who work shifts apparently anyway that's what they told me. They say the dogs are normally released off their leash's, they know its not legal but its late at night whose really going to care. The dogs went in deep how deep we don't know but they came out with what the Richardson's thought was a football but turned out to be a head." Angell pointed her pen at a small bundle covered with a black tarp. The dogs of the Richardson's couple were going to crazy they wanted their football back.

"Find the rest of him?" Danny asked snapping at the head and as the camera's flash lit up the head it looked even more ghastly.

"We have the dog unit out searching for the rest of him." Danny looked up at Angell.

"Really gone to the dogs tonight hasn't it"

"Very clever Messer."

Stella snapped on latex gloves and bent down beside the head.

"Whatever separated his head from the rest of him it wasn't anything sharp see how uneven the flesh was separated?"

"So what kind of weapon are we supposed to be looking for?" Angell asked imagining this poor guys last minutes on the planet. Things like this did not make sleeping at night very easy.

"I have no idea." Stella whispered picking at the wound.

"I hate it when you guys are stumped." Her mobile phone rang and she stepped away from them to answer it.

"Danny pass me a evidence bag."

"Whatcha got?"

"Brownish fiber all around the wound."

"Maybe something he was wearing?"

"Seems too thick to have come from any type of clothing." She bagged the evidence as Angell returned.

"Good news, the dogs might have found our primary crime scene."

It was a long walk through the rough area of the park this was a section seldom visited by locals or tourists mostly frequented by the homeless or drug abusers here you could have all the time yourself and not be bothered.

"Danny I don't want to pry." Angell whispered falling in beside him. "Are you okay? I mean really okay?" He looked away from everyone far off into nothing. He felt the weight of that single word, _really?_

"Really?" He scoffed laughing just a little. "I'm doing really bad."

"Danny." She whispered reaching out to him placing a hand on his shoulder and he thought that touch alone would break him down right there for all the world to see.

"I can't sleep at night if I do its normally interrupted by the same nightmares. I can't get behind the wheel of a car and I'm in pain almost every other day. But time heals and all that other clichéd bullshit right."

"Maybe you shouldn't have come back yet."

"I have to come back sooner or later can't sit at home forever and think about what could have been."

Finally they came into a clearing where the bloodhounds had lead the officers.

"What did they find?" Danny asked and Jessica Angell wish that they had more time to talk.

"We got rope and the dogs smell a scent going to the water."

The rope had blood on it and had been tied in a noose now laid in a mess on the ground dog prints around and a car's tire threads heading to the lake.

"The rope looks like the same fiber we found in the guy's neck Stell."

"So we have a decapitated head a noose and a car possibly sitting at the bottom of the lake?"

"We need to get the frogmen out here."

"Oh wonderful do you know how long its going to take to get them out here? I'm going to call Mac."

It took them nearly two hours to turn up and another half n hour to set up. Stella, Angell and Danny drank more of Danny's which tasted better when they needed it for warmth.

"You got a car and you have a headless body sitting in the driver's seat still clutching the steering wheel were bringing it up right now." The diver came over to tell them.

"I think I know what happened here." Stella said.

"Me too." Danny agreed.

"Hit me."

"It was a suicide."

"Suicide?"

"Guy wraps the rope around the tree climbs into his car floors it thinking its going to lift him and strangle him but he ends up flooring the car."

"Creating enough speed his head is yanked off and his body along with the car goes into the lake."

"You're kidding me."

"We'll check out theory of course but right now on face value your just looking at a suicide." The second car was pulled out of the lake slowly the lights hit it and Danny froze.

"What is it?"

"The number plate." He said walking closer to the car and Stella read it too. It was the only piece of evidence they had from the day Flack and he had been gunned down. CA123456. The number plate had been remembered by an eyewitness. The database tracked it down to a Samuel Cowan who had reported the car stolen a day before. The car had not been since not until right now rising out of its watery grave.


End file.
